Disastrous, but Landis' attorneys have been preparing the public for days now that the sample will probably come back positive, so it's not a big shock. Sad, nonetheless, but not shocking. I'm sure this will drag on for quite some time.

I don't know what to think anymore about the integrity of sports. Its getting to the point where you can't look at the news and pass by without seeing the words "doping" and "steroids" everywhere. Its making me want to study ways of detecting some of these drugs and masking agents one day.

I don't see how anyone can still believe Landis' protestations of innocence. He achieved in stage 17 a comeback that was viewed beforehand as impossible. It seems to me that the simplest explanation is that it really was impossible, absent some form of cheating that Landis thought would escape detection. He knew he was facing hip surgery after the race that could end his career. I could see one of these psychotically competitive athletes, in the heat of the moment, deciding that a cheat was a calculated risk -- one last grab for immortality. In any event, the sport's rotten to the core. I hope this Black Sox moment can turn it around, but as an extremely casual fan of cycling, I don't expect to be paying attention if it does. I'm already an apologist for one cheat-tainted sport as it is.

At risk of sounding like an annoying editor, is it correct to have the headline "Landis loses tour title"? He may be about to lose it, and the Tour dierector says he thinks he should lose it. But he hasn't officially lost it quite yet, has he?

No, he hasn't lost it until USA Cycling officially ban him. Right now, the only thing that's happened is the UCI has confirmed the result of the first test. Now they can pass the case to the national federation, which will invariably find him guilty.

Bugger. It wasn't meant as editorialising, if that gets me any leniency? I guess I can lean on Christian Prudhomme's assertion that "It goes without saying that for us Floyd Landis is no longer the winner of the 2006 Tour de France", although that's just me looking for an emergency exit. But to clarify, as Summers points out Landis is still the Tour champ, if only in name, until the UCI officially take the title away.

Can anyone point me to a site that explains how a boost in testosterone helped his performance that particular day? Did he have a high testosterone count on any other day or did they just test the sample from the big comeback day?

I hope LeMond's holier-than-thou attitude lately stems from his disappointment with the integrity of the sport and not merely sour grapes (or, heaven forbid, guilty conscience). I'm not sure how thorough testing was in LeMond's day, but who's to say he wasn't a cheat as well. I mean if cheating in cycling was as pervasive then as it is now, we might never know exactly how honest LeMond was. I would like to think that doping to this extent is a relatively new phenomenom for the sport, but now I feel I have to question that. Frankly, it's getting a little tiresome to hear LeMond's 2 cents.

From all that I have been hearing/reading, , (fingers crossed, my first attempt at a link), it is not only un-naturally high levels of testosterone, but artificial bits to boot. And if so, he should get the boot. My personal feeling is that he saw his attempt to grab the "golden ring" slipping away, and gave it a go. When caught, he had a Rafeal Palmero, (sp?) moment. Can't say that I haven't done the same, though on a much smaller stage!

Can anyone point me to a site that explains how a boost in testosterone helped his performance that particular day? One word: recovery. And yes, he'll have been tested on other days. Who'd have thought that Pereiro's flat-stage breakaway would give him the Tour?

It's not just recovery. For that he'd just as likely to use EPO or blood-manipulation. Jesus Manzano, the ex Spanish pro who turned whistleblower says this:

In an article with his byline in the Spanish daily AS, Manzano outlined the way riders can take testosterone during a competition, undercutting the argument that testosterone is a substance taken over weeks and months to slowly build strength and resistance. Manzano's interviews helped draw attention to controversial Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who is now at the center of an ongoing doping investigation in Spain. "Its effects are felt almost immediately," Manzano wrote. "It gives you a lot of force and produces a sort of euphoria."

Floyd sucks. The "natural occurrence" was injesting some drugs. Does he think the public is that stupid. (Like Baroid) He's a chump not champ. He'll lose the title and the second-place finisher should sue testosterone man for conversion or trespass to chattel. Glad they caught him.

One thing about the process for handling the "B" sample bothers me. I work in the pharmaceutical industry. When we develop a new test method, we are required to have it validated by a second, independent lab, following our procedure. This confirms that the test actually works and eliminates any chance of bias or poor technique from the original lab. So why in sports drug testing is the second test conducted by the same lab (and probably the same technicians) as the first sample? It would seem to me that to avoid false positives due to either incompetance or anyone intentially biasing the results, you would want that second sample analysis done at another lab. In addition to this, the handling of the sample from the time Landis produced it until analysis is critical. I've never seen any report on this case that fully documents how the lab maintained chain of custody for this sample to avoid any contamination. I don't know if Landis is guilty of doping or not. But I'd sure feel better about the outcome if I could trust the procedures in place weren't in any way suspect.

It seems that the UCI procedure in this instance is to refer the case to the US Cycling Federation following confirmation of a second positive. The USCF then refer the issue to the US Anti-doping Agency, (USADA), for their "processing and adjudication." "In order to protect the integrity and reputation of those athletes who exemplify the Olympic ideals and compete clean, USA Cycling is committed to working with the United States Olympic Committee, the UCI, the U.S. Anti-doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency to ensure a level playing field for all of our athletes." (From here) I may be being naive here, but it strikes me that if there were any possible case for disregarding the results through poor process then it would have already been used by an athlete/cyclist who failed a test. Landis is the fifth Phonak rider to fail a test in the last two years and I can't imagine that the team would feel confident in immediately firing the rider if the process wasn't secure and defensible. Of course the above is argument from personal incredulity, so I'd be happy to be enlightened about the way the process works and the answers to Bikenut's questions from cycling followers.

It's a shame that what should have been the greatest moment in Pereiro's cycling career had to be tainted by this sham. For all Landis' talk about his "years of hard work" he forgets that his doping took away what should have been the crowning achievement of another man's "years of hard work".

I agree with BikeNut....Why is the second test done by the same organization and not done by another lab? Why does it take longer to evaluate the second sample? I am not saying Landis is guilty or innocent, but the testing procedure is suspect.

Interesting stuff afx posted. The OJ reasonable-doubt defense of criticizing everything from the handling of the samples, to the test itself, even to the country of origin, is crude (but effective). I'm not buying it though, and I don't think the powers-that-be will either... When Floyd's original "it was produced by my own organism" defense gets shot down by reports saying it was artificial, and his defenders are relegated to criticizing the UCI for leaking the results... I'm having a mighty hard believing him. Then you factor in Phonak's history of being charged as cheaters (he should have tried Hamilton's unborn twin line) and it gets even harder to believe him. Also should be noted that Basso, Ullrich, et al didn't even get an appeals process before they got the boot. This sucks.

He didn't really fail two tests. He only failed one test twice. When urine samples are collected for drug tests, they use one cupful. It is then poured off into two different containers, A and B. When the A comes back positive the B is run in order to double check against false positives. Why not use a second lab? In theory, the technicians running the test do not know who they are testing. The A and B samples are labeled with a unique identifying number which is linked to a name. The techs do not have access to the identification so there is no reason to go to the extra expense of transporting the specimen to a second lab and chains of custody. Repeating the test in the same lab also reduces any risk of specimen contanimation due to improper storage during transport.

Thanks, afx. I never knew the "quick rush" properties of testosterone and was, as you point out, under the assumption that it was more of a "daily regimen" type of drug that maintained a consistent (albeit higher than normal) level in the body. Thanks for the clarification. The whole sudden aspect of it must result in a hell of a chemical, mental, physical and emotional crash when the stuff wears off. Makes "roid rage" a lot more understandable...well, I mean, you know. Not understandeable, per se, but understandable.

I think people are jumping the gun here. Both Armstrong & Flandis have made the mistake of being much better at bike racing than their French counterparts. They both have been accused of doping with to date no proof. One has to wonder why Landis tested positive on something that should have shown up in previous samples taken and for something that does not enhance performance in the short term. If he had been caught doping, it would be a different matter altogether, but testosterone takes weeks to build muscle mass.

Tahoe 1: "They both have been accused of doping with to date no proof" No proof? Umm, isn't this whole discussion about the fact that Landis failed a dope test? That's proof enough for most people. And as for the "does not enhance performance in the short term" thing, read the article I linked to earlier in this thread. Jesus Manzano says that a simple little testosterone pill will do exactly that. And please, quit with the French thing. That's just lame. After the style of his victory in stage 17, the French loved Floyd Landis, they were all over him. He won with panache, which is exactly what they wanted him to do. Oh, and never mind the little fact that dope tests are carried out by the Switzerland-based UCI, not the Tour de France.

It's interesting how all of the Landis/American fans are scrambling to make excuses for a person who has failed a drug test and has been caught cheating. I wonder how many of those fans were making excuses or concocting stories of frame-up for other American athletes that have either been caught doping or, in some cases, have only been accused by shady characters?

Grum, what's that all about? I expect better from you. It's a legitimate question. In every other thread where a person has been accused or caught in the PED net, it's almost a landslide of opinion on how rotten that person is, especially when they make a public statement about how there must be a mistake (R.P., B.B., sprinters, etc). Now we have an example of someone who has had a miraculous performance (by almost any standard) and has been caught in a (twice-run) drug test and they are making the same claim (mistake!). The same people who bury the previous athletes rush to Landis' defence. I'm just curious as to what those people believe is different in this case.

What I don't get is how these cheaters do not think they're gonna get caught. Floyd, you cheated, you got caught, fess up and go away. Your continued protestations of innocence do nothing but add continued shame to your name.

grum:Now we have an example of someone who has had a miraculous performance (by almost any standard) and has been caught in a (twice-run) drug test and they are making the same claim (mistake!). The same people who bury the previous athletes rush to Landis' defence. I'm just curious as to what those people believe is different in this case. It's definitely a legitimate question. Two reasons I can think of: 1. We don't want to believe it, especially after the high of watching a miraculous recovery and gut-check win. To realize we've been had is hard to face. 2. The state of the anti-doping processes and organizations. Riders treated as guilty until proven innocent by teams and organizations, even with circumstantial evidence; self-serving guys like Dick Pound and LeMond popping up, sketchy lab handling (not so much in this case, I'm thinking of the L'Equipe scandal), constant press leaks, political posturing and on and on. I hate to believe it, and I hate the process, but it sure looks like Floyd is a cheater. That sucks.

It's definitely a legitimate question. Two reasons I can think of: 1. We don't want to believe it, especially after the high of watching a miraculous recovery and gut-check win. To realize we've been had is hard to face. 2. The state of the anti-doping processes and organizations. Riders treated as guilty until proven innocent by teams and organizations, even with circumstantial evidence; self-serving guys like Dick Pound and LeMond popping up, sketchy lab handling (not so much in this case, I'm thinking of the L'Equipe scandal), constant press leaks, political posturing and on and on. ...or that it isn't, in fact, the same people (as grum claims) who pig-pile on Bonds and Palmeiro and want to exonerate Landis. grum, not to give you homework, but are you quite sure that it is "[t]he same people"? I still find the whole thing baffling. Like fenriq, I'm wondering how you could hope to evade a positive result.

I have taking testosterone shots for the last 3 months-I have noticed no quick over-night shots of power. I am growing some hair! And other things "work" better. As I said before we need to put aside the name calling and let this case work itself out! I have a gut feeling that Landis is not quilty.

daddisamm, I'm guessing that there are different kinds of synthetic testestorone that "burn" at different rates, like there are different kinds of sugar that are used by the body at different rates. grum, I think people want to believe that he didn't cheat (great story, another American win, etc.) and that desire can override bullshit detectors. I would love to beleive that Barry Bonds has never used PED's but the circumstantial evidence is pretty overwhelming. As for Landis, he's going to fight the two positive results with his lawyers how? I don't really understand how he could have any sort of a defense here. Are the rules not clear enough? Test positive and you don't get to keep your win. Or is it all posturing now to try and save some face in the light of global humiliation at being caught and called out as a cheater? I'm leaning towards that second one. Its like a poker player pretending to really think about it before he tosses his 2-3 offsuit. He doesn't want to appear weak even though he's got nothing.

You can fight the results all you want, and proclaim that your body produces extra testosterone. Hell, you can claim that your right nut produces Jack Daniels and your left nut produces Coke, but I'm still not buying Landis' assertion that his body produces synthetic testosterone. As far as I know, the body doesn't produce synthetic compounds. Of course, I'm not a biochemist, so I could be uninformed on the subject. As far as the French bashing goes, just let it go. To think that there is some sinister Gaullist conspiracy to ruin American cyclists is foolish. Just because you might not like the French politically doesn't mean they're a bunch of anti-American trolls, just waiting to snatch glory away from any American athlete unfortunate enough to set foot in their country.

grum, not to give you homework, but are you quite sure that it is "[t]he same people"? Well, I'm not going to go digging through the archives looking to "out" specific people. There isn't anything to be gained by making public callouts (even though it's been done to me a few times). It wouldn't be too hard to do. Simply find the names of the die-hard Landis supporters and check their posting history to see what they've said in Bonds/Palmeiro/US Track & Field threads. 1. We don't want to believe it, especially after the high of watching a miraculous recovery and gut-check win. To realize we've been had is hard to face. That's dead on. I did the exact same thing almost 20 years ago when Ben Johnson was busted in Seoul. I assumed it was fixed, or a mistake or something other than our Canadian hero being a cheater. Of course, that faded when the full test results came out, and definitely died when the Dubin inquiry revealed all. As I said before we need to put aside the name calling and let this case work itself out! I have a gut feeling that Landis is not quilty. What's left about this case to "work itself out"? His test sample failed the A test and the B test. It wasn't natural testosterone in his system, but synthetically created. His failure wasn't a "close call", but outrageously over the limit (I'm hearing 11:1 ratio compared to the "fail" limit of only 4:1). The only thing that can possibly exonerate him is somebody stepping up and saying: 1) They tampered with BOTH of his test samples. 2) They slipped him a drug when he wasn't looking. Interestingly, these were the first two "excuses" that the Johnson camp came up with in 1988.

I'm surprised that anyone would risk taking anything knowing how likely testing is. Unless, he thought testosterone would be assumed to be natural to the body even at a higher level. I actually hope he can be cleared.

I'm probably one of the slowest to pile on in these cases, but Floyd's goose is cooked. Anybody who says differently is pinning his hopes on nothing more than wishful thinking. The carbon isotope ratio test (the one that detects synthetic or exogenous testosterone) is very conclusive. From what I have read he has now failed this test on both the A and B samples (as somebody pointed out above, just two parts of the same piss, if you'll pardon my french). So on the day in question, he had synthetic testosterone in his urine, OR somebody intentionally or unintentionally fucked with his sample. From my own experience I can tell you that there are a lot of safeguards in place to prevent tampering between the collection and the time that the sample is opened at the lab. After that, I can't say. At any rate, he will NEVER be able to prove contamination or tampering unless he can find somebody who will confess to it. He's busted and there's no avoiding a two-year ban and loss of the Tour title. (Mind you, the evidence against him was pretty sketchy when it first got leaked to the press, which is a different story.)

As for why he might think he can get away with it, I have a few thoughts. Apparently Landis "just barely" failed the isotope ratio test (NYT reported he had 3.99 units where a positive for synthetic testosterone is 3 units). On the other hand, we know that his T/E ratio was outrageously high (11/1). The former suggests that the amount of synthetic testosterone was actually fairly low, whereas the latter suggests that the ratio of total testosterone to epitestosterone was astronomical. So my guess is that he has been doping testosterone for a long time at a low level; just enough to boost his T/E up to 3/1, for example. He and his medical team have a good handle on that and keep his levels just below the 4/1 ratio where a positive test is flagged. On that day something odd happened -- for example, there is research that shows that alcohol can raise T/E levels, and Landis admits to drinking the evening before. Whatever it was, his epitestosterone levels were unexpectedly depressed, and perhaps his own natural testosterone was elevated for some natural reason. That caused the initial positive test of 11/1, which triggered the lab to do the isotope test, which uncovered the synthetic stuff he'd been using without previous detection.

Gee, I really miss the days when the cheaters were like Tonya Harding and just broke the legs of their competitors. All this chemical science is getting too complicated. Since cycling is so dependant on chemical enhancement, why don't they just accept it and let the best doper win? They have been doing it in bodybuilding, and weight lifting for decades. Didn't Lawrence Taylor play linbacker like a coked up maniac? Oh thats right he was a coked up maniac. He still made the Hall of Fame and is still considered the best linebacker of all time. My guess is that most of the competitors in these big time cylce races are doping anyway. No matter who wins it will be discovered that they were doping. Even if they test the back of the pack finishers they will discover doping. So if everybody dopes just give the victory to the guy who finishes first, since he is the one who beat the other dopers by being a better doper.

But if everyone's doping, then why didn't the second-placed finisher, who is also tested, fail? If you contend that he is doping, he's just doing it well enough to not get caught, then we're already at the point where the best doper wins. Sort of.

How many times was Pereiro tested during Tour? I noticed he finished third and fourth in several stages, but I think someone said that the first and second place stage finishers were tested and everyone else was random. Just wondering. And, by the way, I am not a Landis fan or apologist. I just have no confidence in the whole testing situation, no matter who it is. Frankly, I think that at some future date they are going to go back and test stored samples from some Tour race and find out that there was no winner because everyone was disqualified.

Here comes a shit storm! Another note, a chemical engineer was on the radio this morning saying that one heavy dose of testosterone would do absolutely nothing to enhance perfomance. Testosterone has to build up over an extended period of time to have any effect at all. So, either Landis is incredibly stupid to think that a single dose would do any good or or somethink stinks in Denmark (or France). Man, I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I find it hard to believe Landis is that stupid.

Landis is not stupid. The most likely cause of his failed test is that he missed his dose(s) the day before (you know, the breakdown stage), and that these missed dose(s) unset his balance the following day. This year's Tour was under a lot of scrutiny, and some teams/riders certainly had some delivery issues.

Landis (and his Phonak team and doctors) are not stupid. Riders take testosterone not to enhance performance but rather to aid in recovery. My guess follows along with what qbert wrote; he either "forgot" to take a dose or the dosage was administered incorrectly and therefore tripped the doping controls. You can bet that doping technology is ahead of the doping controls, be it through microdosing or using masking agents.

Willthrill, this is the same Phonak team that has had several other riders fail doping tests in the last two years. Sascha Urweider (SUI) Santiago Perez (ESP) Santos Gonzalez (ESP) Tyler Hamilton (USA) Urweider failed a test in February of this year for, can we guess... excess testosterone, was sacked by the team and received a two year ban. Are we presuming they were all innocent too, because they can't be that stupid, or is it just the American boys who have been framed?

Taking some somewhat obvious factors out of it, the patriotic angle will induce the average U.S. fan to back a guy like Armstrong, Hamilton or Landis than a guy like Barry Bonds. Until Osama starts a baseball team, I think Bonds is shit out of luck. Plus, we've seen Bonds' "character flaws" up close for the last 20 years. In contrast, we know Cad Armstrong for his battle with cancer. Who gets the benefit of the doubt from the average Joe?

I never said I was presuming Landis is innocent. My point is that he had passed all of his previous tests and then turns up dirty after the "miracle" stage. I am just wondering exactly what good would testosterone do for a single stage when it is more of a long term enhancer. I wouldn't be dubious at all if they claimed Landis was doping with EPO or the like, it just seems odd to me that he, or someone, would choose testosterone to give him boost.

afx's link covers what good testosterone can do in the short term. "In an article with his byline in the Spanish daily AS, Manzano outlined the way riders can take testosterone during a competition, undercutting the argument that testosterone is a substance taken over weeks and months to slowly build strength and resistance. "Its effects are felt almost immediately," Manzano wrote. "It gives you a lot of force and produces a sort of euphoria." " The link mentions Rastandol, which can be taken 20 minutes before competition and still have an effect.

** Checks top of thread, thread title and subject. ** Yep, this thread is about Floyd Landis and cycling and not Barry Bonds. Why do the axe grinders have to bring him up here? Aren't there plenty of threads of threads about baseball to rip on him?

I don't know what to think about this case at this point. On one hand, I want to believe Landis, and I do agree the way the UCI rushed to release the results without giving him advance notice seems unfair. Head of UCI - Pat McQuaid - justifies this by saying he knew someone at lab was bound to leak the results. That doesn't give me a lot of faith in the lab's ethics or the UCI's ability to enforce it's own protocols. Aren't all samples supposed to be blind to lab technicians?? On other hand, the carbon isotope results (assuming the test was run correctly) are hard to dodge. If correct, Landis had synthetic testosterone in his body. That's hard to get around. No matter what happens from here on, his goose is cooked. Barring someone from lab or elsewhere admitting to tampering with his sample, I don't see any way he's ever going to overcome the media storm. If he's truly innocent, I really feel sorry for him.

If you contend that he is doping, he's just doing it well enough to not get caught, then we're already at the point where the best doper wins. Sort of. Comment icon posted by Mr Bismarck at 10:22 AM CDT on August 7 I believe this to be true (see Armstrong, Lance). Well, at least among the very top riders. It's possible that the guys who work hard for a part of the race and then squeak by in the grupetto are not doping.